Alan Arkin, who won an Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine, was nominated for Argo and two other films, scored six Emmy noms and won a Tony Award, died Thursday at his home in San Marcos, CA. He was 89.
The news was announced Friday morning by his sons, actors Adam, Matthew and Anthony, in a joint statement. Matthew Arkin told The New York Times that his father had suffered from heart ailments.
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The statement read: “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man. A loving husband, father, grand and great grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.”
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In addition to his Oscar-winning film work, Arkin won a Tony Award for acting in Enter Laughing) and was Tony-nominated for directing The Sunshine Boys. He also was nominated for a half-dozen Emmy Awards spanning 53 years, most recently for starring opposite Michael Douglas in the Netflix comedy The Kominsky Method in both 2019 and 2020. He left the show after its second season.
His other Emmy nominations were for lead actor in a limited series or movie for his role as Harry Rowen in The Pentagon Papers in 2003, a guest shot on Chicago Hope in 1997, supporting actor in the 1987 miniseries Escape from Sobibor and for ABC Stage 67 in 1967.
More recently he was the voice of J.D. Salinger in the Netflix animated series Bojack Horseman.
Arkin was born on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrants parents from Russia and Germany. He made his first big-screen appearance as an uncredited singer in Fred Sears’ Calypso Heat Wave (1957). Arkin made his Broadway debut in the 1961 musical From the Second City. He next starred as David Kolowitz in the Broadway comedy Enter Laughing, for which he won the Tony. It ran for a year at Henry Miller’s Theatre in 1963-64.
Arkin earned his first Academy Award nomination in the Best Actor category for his first substantial onscreen role, in Norman Jewison’s 1966 Cold War comedy The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming. He was nominated again in 1968 for his role as a mute in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Robert Ellis Miller.
He finally won an Academy Award in 2006 for what was described at the time as a comeback performance in the cult teen comedy Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell, Toni Collette and a young Paul Dano. He followed that with an Oscar-nominated performance in Ben Affleck’s Best Picture winner Argo.
Arkin clocked more than 100 feature film credits across his decades-long career. Notable pics include the 2017 Going in Style remake, Million Dollar Arm, The Muppets, Get Smart, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, So I Married an Ax Murderer, North, GlenGarry Glen Ross, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Slums of Beverly Hills, Catch-22, Edward Scissorhands, Freebie and the Bean, The In-Laws, Slums of Beverly Hills and Wait Until Dark, where he starred alongside Audrey Hepburn. He also voice Wild Knuckles in last year’s toon sequel Minions: The Rise of Gru, which was his last screen credit.
He also enjoyed a significant Broadway career, both as an actor and director. Alongside his 1963 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor/Play for Enter Laughing, he was Tony-nominated in 1973 for his direction of the original production of Neil Simon’s classic The Sunshine Boys, starring Jack Albertson and Sam Levene. Other Broadway acting credits include 1961’s From the Second City and 1964’s Luv. He directed Hail Scrawdyke! in 1966, Molly in ’73, and, most recently, Taller Than a Dwarf in 2000.
Along with his sons Adam, Matthew and Anthony — all of whom are actors — Arkin is survived by his third wife Suzanne Newlander Arkin, whom he married in 1999.
Erik Pedersen contributed to this report.
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